Chapter 20
“Baby, grab that phone for me,” Steve yelled out to Sylvia on a pleasant evening while fixing around the house. “If it’s Cee, jus’ tell him to come-on through, I’m waiting on’em.”
“Okaaay!” She responded while forcing herself out of her daily talk show program, Oprah.
Sylvia marched and turned toward the kitchen, mumbling a few disturbing words under her breath for being disrupted from her talk show.
“Hello,” She answered in a formal tone.
“Uh . . . uh, haeey, Mrs. Williams,” The person on the other end greeted nervously.
“Haeeey, whom am I speaking with?”
“This JR, ma’am. How you doing today?” JR replied with manners.
“JR . . . ?” Sylvia questioned as if she was caught off guard. “Boy, you ain’t called my house since you and Marcus were kids,” she chuckled out in between making her statement. “What, Marcus must’ve told you he was gonna be over here today or something?”
“No, ma’am. I was really calling to talk to Steve. Is he around?”
Before answering his question, she thought about it for a second. None of Marcus’s friends ever called their house looking for Steve, so instinctively a sense of uneasiness began to overwhelm her. The intuition of a concerned mother started to kick in.
“Nawl! Baby, Steve ain’t here,” She said with an emotional distress forming upon her silky smooth caramel-complexioned face.
“What’s the matter?”
“Well . . . uhhh—,” JR stuttered out.
“JR . . . !” Sylvia began to snap after cutting him off, sensing trouble. “Stop beating around the bush and tell me know what the hell is going on!”
After hearing the loud commotion coming from the phone conversation, Steve headed in that direction to see what was the problem.
“Mrs. Williams, Mount Sinai Hospital jus’ called my phone and told me that Marcus and Pee Wee was admitted into the emergency room after suffering from gun sh—”
“Oh God, oh God, oh my God! No, please Lord, nooooo!” Sylvia rapidly muttered out in a dramatic fashion after dropping the phone. Her nerves became so uncontrollably shaken from the news that she was unable to keep still as if she was having a nervous breakdown. Sylvia had both of her shaking hands wrapped around her mouth while tears were pouring down her face.
“Baby . . . !” He said while frantically attempting to console his wife. “What’s wrong?”
From her hysterics, Sylvia wasn’t able to clearly inform Steve on the news, so she pointed down at the phone, scared.
“Hello! Hello!” He furiously spoke through the receiver after picking the phone up from the floor, only to get the voice of the operator. “Sylvia! Who the hell jus’ called this house!”
“It’s Marcus, babe,” She managed to cry out. “JR said he got’a call from the hospital saying Marcus been shot!” She said before letting out a hysterical cry.
“Shot . . . !” He shouted while showing signs of being in a semi–state of shock. “What hospital he at?”
“Mount Sinai.”
“Come-on, let’s go!” He said in the same motion of reaching for the car keys that rested on the kitchen table.
They both grabbed their jackets and raced for the door dressed as is.
On their ten-minute drive straight down Ogden Avenue to the hospital, Steve tried everything in his soul to console his wife. Sylvia was definitely in her concerned-mother mode as she rocked herself back and forth while constantly praying, trying to do everything to calm her nerves.
While pulling up to the hospital, they witnessed an unprecedented amount of people standing all around the hospital. The word had gotten around the west side almost faster than when the incident happened. Majority of the crowd were lords that were in deep rage from the incident and other people who just simply had much love for the two. There were even a lot of females from the neighborhood out there, crying and praying amongst each other. From the looks of the crowd, it seemed as if they all were gathered around to mourn the slaying of a world leader.
“What the hell going on up here,” Steve blurted out, but not getting a response out of Sylvia who seemed numbed from the entire situation.
After double-parking on the side street due to the lack of legal parks because of the crowd, Sylvia and Steve rushed out their vehicle and began rambling through the crowd. Once a few people out of the crowd noticed who they were trying to get through, all that was heard was a loud commotion of voices demanding, “Everybody make a hole! Let chief momma and ole man get through!”
Within the rest of the rumbling voices, a group chanted out, “Unc, we gon’ get them niggaz, believe that!” Steve managed to ignore the comments as they made it through to the main entrance.
“I’m sorry, we’re not taking any more visitors,” the receptionist said while stopping them in their tracks; the lobby was packed to capacity with concerned faces all around.
“Excuse me . . . ?” Sylvia began to snap. “We are the parents of a Marcus Williams and I was informed that he was being cared for here at this hospital!”
“Ma’am, I’m not sure if you are aware or not, but everyone here is trying to get the status of these two individuals. But I was informed not to give out any information.”
After several demands from the crowd in the lobby and Sylvia and Steve going back and forth with the receptionist, she was forced to get someone of a higher position to come and allow them to be escorted to the floor of the intensive care unit area.
The nurse escorted them to the waiting room before going to get the operating surgeons. Once the two doctors made it to the room, one being of Oriental descent and the other white, they instantly began stating facts.
“Okay, to my understanding, you are the parents of,” One of the doctors began to state before briefly checking his charts. “Marcus Williams.”
“Correct,” Sylvia replied nervously.
“Okay, ma’am, I’m going to cut right to the chase,” The white surgeon began to explain. “Earlier this afternoon your son was able to maneuver his way to our emergency room despite being under extreme circumstances . . . Now I do have a little good news out of this terrible situation. Marcus is in stable condition, but his friend on the other hand wasn’t so lucky. Do you have any information on Mr. Johnson’s (Pee Wee) family?”
Sylvia hesitated before saying, “No . . . I mean, he has a grandmother but I wouldn’t want to worry her like that, she’s been through a lot and she’s up in age. I look at Travis (Pee Wee) as a son figure, so you can feel free to talk to me about his condition.”
“Well . . . ,” The doctor began to comment in the midst of taking off his eyeglasses, “Me and the rest of my staff have been working continuously on keeping this young man alive. We actually had to revive him twice in order to keep him with us. He suffered from nine bullet wounds in the chest and back area while Marcus, in turn, took four, three in the abdominal area and one to the upper thigh area. While Marcus would still need to rehabilitate for a short period of time, Travis on the other hand would be lucky to walk again if he’s able to make it through.”
After receiving the news, Sylvia and Steve was relieved that Marcus was alive, but at the same time they felt just as bad for Pee Wee. They had love for all of Marcus’s closest friends as if they were their own.
“Doc, will we be able to see the both of them?” Steve asked.
“Yes. Marcus is responsive. But the tubes that we have running through him at this time won’t allow him to talk very clearly. Now, Mr. Johnson is not responsive at all and he’s breathing off of life support.”
“Doc, please allow me to see Travis despite his condition. I would like to say a few prayers for his behalf. If you may?” Sylvia pleaded.
Before giving an answer, the two surgeons looked at each other before one spoke out, “Yes, I think we can make that happen, ma’am.”
On their long walk down the cold hallway
s, all that was rambling through Sylvia’s mind was how badly her son had been hurt. As they inched closer to the room door, the more nervous Sylvia became. Once entering the room, all of her emotions began to flare up again.
“Ohhhhh my baby!” Sylvia cried out with her hand covering her mouth as she rushed over to the bed area to embrace her firstborn as a mother would do a child. “Are you okay, baby?”
By Marcus being so weak from undergoing surgery, he managed to mumble out a few words while tightly gripping his mother’s hand.
Instead of Steve being emotional about the situation, he stood in the background, mean mugging, as if he was gathering himself for a showdown.
“Marcus, baby, I need you to listen to me and listen to me good,” Sylvia said while tearing up as she caressed her son’s hand before lecturing him. “Baby, you need to really consider changing the way you live. I know you grown now, but you still my baby and I can’t stand to lose you over some bullshit!” Sylvia cried out forcefully. “Marcus, I don’t know if I’ll be able to take another one of these episodes. It’ll kill me!” she exclaimed in an even more dramatic fashion.
After making that comment, Marcus reacted by respectfully jerking his hand away from his mother’s embrace and turning his face to hide the uncontrollable emotion. All the while, Steve stood back in silence.
“Well, baby, let me go check on your friend” She mentioned, immediately getting Marcus to face her again. “The doctor says he going to’ make it, baby. The Good Lord blessed y’all.” Before leaving out the room, she kissed Marcus on the forehead and said, “I’mma leave you and Steve alone while I go pray over Pee Wee.”
The moment Sylvia stepped foot out the door, Steve marched over to the bed. Without asking Marcus how he felt, the first words out of Steve’s mouth was, “I’mma make sure this shit get took care of befo’ you check up out of this hospital! You hear me!” Steve dangerously assured.
Marcus repeatedly shook his head no at Steve’s statement before clearly stating, “Pops, I need you to send word through to the streets, telling everybody to stay still and do not start a war ova’ this shit.” Marcus muttered this out while showing signs of weakness from the operation.
“Marcus,” Steve hesitated. “You know how hard that’s gon’ be? Look out that window. Every nigga you see out there is ready to kill up the world for you!”
“Look!” Marcus strained out as he began to cough. After gathering himself, he continued, “Whoever did this shit tried to kill me and one of my brotha’s in’a neighborhood we been in all our life! I’m gon’ get to the bottom of this shit and make these niggaz feel my pain, personally!” Marcus stressed with great emotion as one cold tear slowly came rolling down his cheek.
Steve stood there speechless while staring at Marcus. Matching Steve’s silence, Marcus turned his attention toward the window, which showed views of the roaring crowd outside of the hospital and also the Sears Tower and John Hancock Skyscraper that stood about fifteen miles away, deep into the downtown area.
A couple of minutes of being in a deep thought while staring down at the majority of his mob raising hell outside the hospital, most of them not knowing whether Marcus and Pee Wee were dead or alive, Marcus began to slowly nod his head up-and-down with a slight mysterious smirk forced upon his face. In the same motion, he glanced up at the towers, which landmarked the city, with a certain glare in his eyes as if to say, “This city belongs to me!” NOW!